"It don't make much difference how many of them there are, if they dare not attack us," Hugh said.
"That's where you are wrong, Hugh," Broncho Harry, who had now joined them, said. "The more thar are of them the closer watch they can keep to see that none of us gets away, and the more thar are of them the bigger the party must be that comes to rescue us. You may be sure that they have scouts for miles and miles off, and if they get news that there is a party coming up, they will just leave a guard to keep us here, and go down and fall on them."
"I didn't think of that, Harry. Yes, it will need a very strong party to bring us off. But perhaps they will get tired and go."
"Don't you bet on that, Hugh. Ef thar air one thing an Injun never gets tired of, it's waiting. Time ain't nothing to them. Them chaps can send out parties to hunt just as if they wur in their own villages. The boys will bring them down corn, and gather their firewood for them, and as long as we are up here, they will stop down thar, if it was six months. They know how many of us thar are here. Lots of them must have been up here at one time or another, and knowing the time of year, and how much rain has fallen lately, there ain't no doubt they can calkilate pretty well how much water there is in this pool. They will know that we shall keep our horses as long as we can, and they will reckon that three weeks at the outside will see the end of the water. As for food, of course, we are all right. We have got the horses to eat, and horse is pretty nigh as good as cow-beef. I would just as soon have one as the other. A young broncho's a sight tenderer than an old cow any day."
Hugh now took a turn round the edge of the butte. It was, as Royce had said, a mass of rock rising perpendicularly from the plain. It was separated from the other butte by a gap a hundred and fifty feet wide. It was clear that they had once formed one mass, for between them was a rocky shoulder connecting them. This was very steep on both sides, narrowing almost to a razor edge at the top, where it joined the butte on which they were standing. This edge was fifty feet below the top, but it rose as it retreated from it, and on the opposite side reached up to a level with the plateau.
A fire had already been lighted on the top of the butte, and over this the women were cooking some of the meat they had brought from the Indian village, and in a short time the whole party except two, who were placed on sentry to watch the movements of the Indians, gathered round it.
"Waal, boys," Steve said when the meal was finished, "I reckon that thar ain't no time to lose, and that I had best start to-night. There ain't no denying that we air in a pretty tight fix here, and it won't be easy to get a force as can fight their way through that crowd. I reckon I shall not be able to gather over fifty cow-boys on the Canadian, and so I'll have to ride to the nearest fort and get the troops to help. That air about two hundred miles from the Canadian. It ull take me three days to get there after I leave the ranches. It ull take four at the very least before the troops will get down there. You can't reckon less than a week. I shall be two days getting down to the ranches, as there won't be any travelling by day. So you see if I start to-night, you can't reckon on seeing us back afore ten days at the earliest."
"That will be about it, Steve. I don't see as you can do without the troops noway. Waal, we can hold out a fortnight easy. We must put the horses on mighty short allowance of water, so as to make it last a fortnight. If we find it running out quicker'n we expect, we must kill off half the animals. It don't matter about them a bit, ef you come up strong enough to thrash the Red-skins without our help. Yes, I think you had better go to-night. You are as likely to get out to-night as any night, but you'll have to look mighty sharp, Steve, for you may bet your life them Injuns will be as thick as bees round the butte."
"How do you mean to go, Steve?" Hugh asked.
"Tie the ropes together, Lightning, and get lowered down over the edge."